For almost five years, the crosswalk leading to Cocoa’s Endeavour Magnet Elementary School was painted with the school’s colors and empowering messages for the students like: “Believe in you” and “Path to Success.”
Late last month, the crosswalk was painted over.
Endeavour Magnet Elementary School wasn’t the only Brevard school to have its student art painted over. The same thing happened at Golfview, Fairglen and Roosevelt elementary schools, where previous student art painted in bicycle lanes was removed.
Why?
The official reason is that the crosswalk needed to comply with a federal mandate that roads needed to be stripped of any “distractions.” There was also, as reported by my colleague Finch Walker, a state mandate that all nonstandard crosswalks and street art be removed by Sept. 4 or see funding withheld for noncompliance.
Many believe the real reason is that the crosswalk issue is an extension of the ongoing feud between Gov. Ron DeSantis and the LGBTQ community.
When criticized for removing the painted rainbow crosswalk near the site of the 2016 Pulse mass shooting in Orlando, the first piece of street art to be removed in Florida, DeSantis defended the actions on social media.
“We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes,” he said.
Surely the positive affirmations for students going to school in Cocoa could not be deemed political, right? Was it a hindrance to local drivers? Are the murals in the Eau Gallie Arts District next? Surely billboards along major roads depicting women in bikinis can be seen as distracting as well.
And that brings us to the Question of the Week:
Do you think painted crosswalks and street murals are a distraction to drivers?
You can cast your votes on the ballots above.
Or, you can scan the QR code that is on the print edition page or go to https://www.floridatoday.com/opinions-columns/. Please leave a comment telling us why you voted the way you did. In order for your comment or email to be published on our website and in next week’s print edition, you must include your first and last name.Last week I asked:
Should mandates requiring children to be vaccinated against childhood diseases before they can enter school be eliminated?
Results:
Yes: 11.11%
No: 88.89%
Here’s what you had to say:
I support vaccines but not mandatory. The claim that unvaccinated children endanger others is spurious. If a child is vaccinated then whether another child contracts the disease is immaterial as the vaccinated children are immune.
— George Nebeling
I cannot believe what is going on in our country and now in our State!!! By ending vaccination mandates, we are inviting problems with keeping our children healthy!
— Mary Lee Stickle
What level of insanity has come over us to remove common sense protections for the children and compromised adults in our society? I never realized the Funeral and Cremation Lobby was so strong. Years of science, study and basic human protections done away in the name of freedom? My generation grew up with the freedom to get polio, measles, mumps, chicken pox and whooping cough and were lucky to make it to adulthood. Give our children the freedom to avoid these illnesses and to be able to grow up without swollen jaws, red dots and paralyzed limbs.
— Linda Galletta
A civilized society has a moral obligation to protect its citizens. We are commanded to do for the “least of these” if we follow the Christian faith. Young children, the immunocompromised, the elderly all have a right to participate in society. Without the protection of herd immunity brought about through a vaccinated population, we will fail in our duty to protect these people. A society with a “me first” attitude will become a jungle mentality of “survival of the fittest”. That is a moral and religious failure.
— Lisa Zelnick
Ladapo says that parents should make “informed decisions” regarding vaccinations of their children. An “informed decision” is not something we can expect from our Surgeon General. When kids inevitably die, he’ll say it was their parents’ choice, avoiding all responsibility. We can and must do better.
— Fritz Kraemer
Requiring that children be vaccinated before they can attend public schools, gives parents the assurance that the school is safe for their children to attend. Not requiring vaccinations to attend will result in more sick children, spreading of diseases, and fearful parents. Secondarily causing loss of school days and parents’ time off work to care for sick children.
— Holly Jewell
Some vaccines are an important part of life. Do you want polio again, whooping cough etc. Some vaccines are proven success. I don’t understand the logic behind eliminating vaccines. I think its a big mistake and we will pay dearly for it in the future.
— Bob Socks
RFK jr should be fired immediately as well as Lapido for endangering the public health . Vaccines are essential and have saved millions of lives of people snd children.
— Ken Kremer
The mandate absolutely should remain. The fact that Desantis is turning vaccinations into a political pawn is dangerous and appalling. I had a classmate who had contracted polio as a young child and he had to use braces on his legs to walk. People seem to be forgetting what is was like before vaccinations. Although in the case of politicians I believe they just don’t care about the lives of their constiuents. I am completely disgusted by the GOP over this issue. For the record I am a registered independent.
— Cindy Hadaller
When I was ten years old in Connecticut, back in 1947, our Sunday School class took a trip to a hospital in nearby Newington. It was a hospital for no one except polio patients. I vividly remember one huge room filled with large metal cases that looked like fat elongated orange-colored cigars on risers with wheels– unworldly-looking boxes.
Inside each box was a person. A living, helpless person.
I was stunned. I had heard my mother talking with the other neighborhood mothers about polio. It was a disease to be feared, but until that day I had never seen any examples of what the word “polio” meant.
And now I was seeing this disease up close– looking at kids my age who lay on their backs in those boxes, who looked helplessly and passively at me. When the Salk vaccines came out it seemed like a miracle! I could keep my children from ever having to suffer that hated disease.
There’s a good chance that the younger people arguing now to ignore vaccines have never seen those orange-colored metal cases ― and that is because polio has up to now been erased as a deadly disease.
But I am older and I have never been able to shut out the image of kids my age being encased, punished for the rest of their lives, for simply having contracted polio before vaccines.
— Barbara Bayley
Unfortunately this is another stunt to generate nationwide name recognition for Ron DeSantis in his run for president in 2028. This time using Dr Ladapo as his vehicle, last time it was “Alligator Alcatraz”. Will there be state legislation to forbid private school from requiring vaccinations? Why not on a federal level, no more vaccines in military boot camp!
— Gregory Pierce
Shakespeare himself would have enjoyed the opportunity to write a play using that question. He probably would have answered it with another of his familiar quotes, “Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well.”
My advice to those in authority be they the president, the governor, representatives, senators, and finally the last bastion ― the parents who foolishly decide the FATE of this generation of children ― shame on all of you!
For me personally, having been “forced” in my childhood to take the Salk vaccine for the prevention against polio, I look forward to hearing and reading about the coming chaos brought on by the outbreaks of many childhood diseases.
Finally, I thank God for the chance to grow up in a society who truly looked after not only their own family but their neighbors. Who ‘foolishly’ appreciated science and health research. I vote NO!
— Michael Palmer
The move by the Florida surgeon general to eliminate the vaccination requirement for our children is appalling and will have a detrimental effect on their health in years to come. Hopefully, parents will do the right thing and continue immunizing their children.
— Greg Gaddis
I remember as a child, we had a neighbor who was a friend and in a wheelchair. He had Polio. He died when he was 10. That trauma stayed with me. Texas dropped mandatory measles vaccines and several neighboring states followed suit. That was this year and those states had measles outbreaks. One child died from complications. It doesn’t have to be that way. Science and medicine outweigh opinions. Protect our children who have no immunity. Vaccines work.
— Tony Hines
I have a scary feeling that a few decades from now young couples hoping to start a family will be told by their medical provider that one or both of them are sterile as a result of a childhood disease which would have been easily preventable by a safe, common vaccine. Their parents will have to confess to them that they followed the advice of politicians and conspiracy theorists instead of the scientific community.
By then, Gov DeSantis and Surgeon General Ladapo won’t be around to explain their thinking on the matter. But for the family, no biological children/grandchildren.
— Bill Bjork
I disagree with dropping the mandate for vaccinations. They say we should learn from history but time after time is showing now that we don’t. Diseases have always been a problem in human history. Fortunately, we live in the time where scientists have been able to make vaccines to cure or prevent them. Why do we want to go backwards? I daresay most of the Florida legislature is now old enough to remember when these diseases were deadly. My Dad, born in 1924, had diphtheria when he was a child. I remember taking the sugar cube that contained the polio vaccine. I’ve never had rubella so my doctor recommended in 1970 that I get the vaccine, which I did. We live with colds but living with the diseases that they want to eliminate mandatory vaccination for is not the smart thing to do. They are contagious and spread quickly. We will just remake history.
— Vicky Openshaw
People that want to end vaccine mandates must be willfully ignorant of the great public health benefits of vaccination, over decades – perhaps because the many childhood diseases have been so well controlled that they don’t perceive the risk. We agree to get vaccinated in order to protect our selves and anyone else we might infect. Here is an analogy: let’s let turn off the traffic lights and take down the STOP signs – why should the state tell me how to drive my car? Surely one can see that if even a small percentage of drivers did this, the carnage could be widespread… parents could exercise their “right” to do this – and maybe kill themselves, their children and anyone else unlucky enough to be in their path… Our Dr. Ladapo is a danger to the public and refuses to see the science and data backing it. He, and RFK Jr, are public menaces.
— Joel McGinley
Figures like RFK Jr. and Florida’s Joseph Ladapo are able to spread anti-vaccine rhetoric largely because we benefit from herd immunity established by previous vaccination efforts. Unfortunately, some communities listen to these messages and choose not to vaccinate their children. We’ve already seen the consequences—two children died from measles in Texas due to low vaccination rates in their community. Sadly, when vaccination rates decline and outbreaks of preventable diseases increase, DeSantis, RFK Jr., and Ladapo will likely be out of office and nowhere to be found. The damage, however, will remain.
— Oscar Harris
Don’t let our leaders trivialize their duty to protect the people by ending the vaccination requirements in our public schools. Obviously, you should have control over your own body, however the government’s responsibility is to protect the “people”— not protect the “me.” if you can’t support the tried and true protections offered by vaccines, you can always go elsewhere to have your children educated,
— John Russo
Joseph Ladapo is right! He should not be telling you what to put in your child’s body. Based on his recent remarks and recommendations, he is the last person parents should be listening to when it comes to the health of their children. Dr. Ladapo chooses to ignore the recommendations of hundreds, if not thousands of medical researches and over 100 years of history. Instead, many of his remarks seem to smack of discredited, pseudoscientific eugenics theory rather than factual scientific evidence.
It would appear that Dr. Ladapo’s goal of obtaining a Harvard medical degree was more for prestige than receiving a comprehensive medical education. His ‘medical opinions’ seem totally antithetical to his training and experiences as a medical student, intern and resident. Ladapo seems to confuse his personal beliefs with actual medical facts.
Dr. Ladapo would be wise to listen to countless epidemiologist, immunologist and other specialists who actually have years of experience in treating infectious diseases. Parents would be wise to listen to their sage advice, along with the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Years ago, I visited a colonial era cemetery with my teenage daughter. I had to explain to her a series of tombstones in one particular plot. It was the burial plot of a family whose members all died within a few days of each other. I explained the cause of death was most likely some infections disease, like cholera or smallpox, which raged through America at that time. It seems Dr. Ladapo wants to return us to that time!
— Paul Capaldo
Contact Torres at jtorres@floridatoday.com. You can follow him on X @johnalbertorres
Multimedia editor Rob Landers contributed to this report.
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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Question of the Week: Do you find painted crosswalks and street art to be distracting?
Reporting by John A. Torres, Florida Today / Florida Today
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